Jane Baine opened Sleek & Slender Wellness Centre about 30 years ago
Jane Baine opened Sleek & Slender Wellness Centre about 30 years ago
When Jane Baine opened Sleek & Slender Wellness Centre nearly three decades ago, Uganda did not yet have the kind of wellness economy that exists today. Preventive healthcare, lifestyle management and structured wellness services were not part of everyday consumer behaviour, and many people still associated spending on health with treatment after illness rather than investment in wellbeing before illness.
For Jane, that meant the business had to do more than attract customers; it had to build understanding around an idea that many Ugandans had not yet considered commercially.
The idea came from her own life. After spending ten years as a stay-at-home mother, Jane found herself dealing with weight gain and related health concerns. As she searched for solutions, she realised that many other women were facing similar challenges but had limited access to structured wellness services that could help them manage their health early, consistently and with professional support.
What began as a personal need became the basis of a business that would later grow into one of Uganda’s pioneering wellness enterprises.
“I started this business purely for taking care of myself and also taking care of people who were in my situation,” she says.
At the time, the decision to build a business around wellness was far from obvious. Many entrepreneurs were drawn to sectors where demand was easier to read and where customers already understood what they were paying for.
Sleek & Slender required a different kind of patience because Jane had to explain the services, build confidence around unfamiliar equipment and persuade people that preventive wellness was not a luxury but part of taking health seriously.
Even within her own home, the idea was initially met with caution. Her husband wondered whether her gentle personality would withstand the demands of enterprise, but he later became one of her strongest supporters, helping her acquire equipment, finance the venture and secure the premises from which the centre began operating.
On the first day, only one client walked through the door, a beginning that exposed the commercial difficulty of building demand in a market that did not yet fully understand the value of what was being offered.
Growth came through trust, explanation, visible results and referrals from clients who began to appreciate the benefits of consistent wellness support.
As Sleek & Slender matured, Jane’s focus expanded from attracting clients to strengthening the business behind the service. Through clients who frequented the centre, she developed a relationship with dfcu Bank that later connected her to women-focused enterprise platforms designed to help entrepreneurs move beyond day-to-day survival.
Jane’s growth story sits within a wider women’s enterprise landscape that is active, ambitious and still constrained by structural barriers. Women own about 38% to 40% of businesses in Uganda, yet many women-led enterprises remain underrepresented and continue to face challenges in accessing finance, large-scale procurement opportunities, technology, markets and networks.
Through dfcu’s Women in Business Programme and the dfcu Rising Woman Initiative, Jane accessed business training, mentorship and networks of women entrepreneurs building enterprises across different sectors. The exposure gave her access to practical lessons on management, visibility, customer relationships and long-term growth, while also placing her within a wider community of women confronting similar questions about how to formalise, strengthen and scale their businesses.
Annette Kiconco, Chief Retail Banking Officer at dfcu Bank, says women entrepreneurs are already demonstrating the ambition and resilience needed to build businesses, but many still face barriers that limit their ability to scale.
“For dfcu Bank, supporting women entrepreneurs is directly aligned with our purpose of transforming lives and businesses in Uganda. Our Women in Business Program, launched in 2007, has been a pioneer in supporting women entrepreneurs across the country through tailored financial solutions, training, networking and mentorship. When women are given the right tools, capital and networks, they do more than just run businesses; they transform communities.”
Kiconco’s view of women’s enterprise is rooted in economic impact rather than symbolism. “When women are given the right tools, capital and networks, they do more than just run businesses; they transform communities,” she said.
The Women in Business Program has reached over 80,000 women entrepreneurs across Uganda, while dfcu’s wider women enterprise interventions include the Women Business Advisory Centre, Rising Woman, the GROW Project and the Advancing Women Entrepreneurs partnership, all of which combine access to capital with training, advisory support and market linkages.
For Jane, that kind of support matters because Sleek & Slender was built in a market that demanded both patience and constant learning. In its early years, the business had to educate customers while delivering services.
As the market became more receptive, the challenge shifted to sustaining growth, improving the business, learning from other entrepreneurs and adapting to changing expectations around health and wellness.
dfcu’s Women in Business and Rising Woman platforms gave her access to peer learning and business development exposure that strengthened the way she understood growth beyond day-to-day operations.
“I want to commend dfcu for helping women grow their businesses,” she says.
Nearly three decades after opening her doors to one client, Jane now operates in a wellness sector that looks very different from the one she entered. Ugandans are more conscious of lifestyle risks, preventive health and the need to invest in wellbeing before medical complications arise. Sleek & Slender’s growth from a business that had to explain itself to a centre serving dozens of clients daily reflects the commercial maturation of wellness as a sector and the persistence required to build demand before demand becomes obvious.
Jane’s story is not simply about personal resilience or a business that survived a slow start. It is about a woman entrepreneur who recognised a need before the market had fully named it, built trust around services many people did not yet understand and stayed with the idea long enough for wellness to become part of Uganda’s broader health and lifestyle conversation.
With support from dfcu Bank’s women-focused enterprise platforms, she has continued to strengthen a business that helped make wellness visible as a commercial opportunity and as a practical part of how Ugandans think about healthier living.
